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Suicide as Insurance

I find it odd that the lead author of a study on physician-assisted suicide finds it ''odd that there is such strong public support for legalization of assisted suicide'' when the study found ''so little of this actually occurring'' (front page, April 23).

The answer is obvious. People are not clamoring for physician-assisted suicide, but want insurance against the rare cases of uncontrollable end-of-life pain and suffering, which only physician-assisted suicide can offer. If legalized, the rate of physician-assisted suicide will increase, but not very much.

ALAN MEISEL

Pittsburgh, April 23, 1998

The writer is a professor of bioethics and law at the University of Pittsburgh.